{It's} Not a Holidayhttps://notaholiday.wordpress.com
It's an adventure - a learning adventure!
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1 http://wordpress.com/https://s0.wp.com/i/buttonw-com.png{It's} Not a Holidayhttps://notaholiday.wordpress.com
Well that is that….https://notaholiday.wordpress.com/2012/08/31/well-that-is-that/
https://notaholiday.wordpress.com/2012/08/31/well-that-is-that/#commentsFri, 31 Aug 2012 00:25:39 +0000http://notaholiday.wordpress.com/?p=951Continue reading →]]>We are well and truly back home and into all that our normal life holds: housework, friends, church activities, sport, drama, and craft. But we need to say goodbye to this blog.

As soon as we stepped out of the airport in Darwin we knew we were home. Not just Australia but the north – it feels different. Naomi reckons the friendly drunk helped!! But that is a whole ‘nuther story!! We spent a day in Darwin doing a bit of shopping and catching up with friends (and getting over a bit of jetlag). We then had a 10 hour drive home. About ½ way the scenery changes and we change the music (to our Kimberley Music) and the kids start to get a little silly!! We stopped by to take this photo to mark our return to the Kimberley.

This is what we are used to! It is home!

Blogging our adventure as a family added to our travelling experience and we thank those who commented though we know there were many other friends – both online friends and in real life friends, not to mention both old and new friends, as well as family following us. I know there were a few families who used our travels as a kick start for talking about things to their kids – history, art, beliefs and personalities of long ago. I think that was just great.

What next for us? One thing that was confirmed to us while we were away is that friendships are really important to us – we need to make sure that our lifestyle makes room for this priority. Pete will continue working as a vet on the cattle stations, Belinda continues to be a stay at home mum, Josh picks up his uni studies though he has a few travelling commitments that will take him out of Kununurra, Jess has projects coming out of her ears!! And will start some online studies shortly, Naomi has won the part of “Dodger” in a local production of Oliver so that will take up a lot of her free time, Daniel has started Taekwondo. Naomi and Daniel continue to homeschool. So life really does go on… skills grow and new interests form.

On the homeschooling front our main focus will be everyone working on their own photo album reflecting on our adventure. This will incorporate their photos and journals so they have a permanent record of all that they saw and did. In fact I’m encouraging everyone (even Peter) to do an album of their own.

Everyone except Peter will continue with blogging though we are trying to convince Pete to start a blog of his own but he’s not sure he’d have much to say after working in the cattle yards all day!

If you would like to keep in touch with our blogs you’ll find us here:

Thanks for joining us and can I leave you with a thought… regardless of what adventure you find yourself on today…. Live life with your kids!

]]>https://notaholiday.wordpress.com/2012/08/31/well-that-is-that/feed/5belindaletchfordrusty peaks boabFinishing on a Highhttps://notaholiday.wordpress.com/2012/08/25/finishing-on-a-high/
https://notaholiday.wordpress.com/2012/08/25/finishing-on-a-high/#commentsSat, 25 Aug 2012 10:37:44 +0000http://notaholiday.wordpress.com/?p=937Continue reading →]]>In my earlier blog titled “Over the Top” I left you with the thought that the train trip over the Alps would be hard to bet. Actually being playing in the snow and walking across and into the glaciers on the top of Mount Titlis at 10000 feet as Naomi has already blogged would have to challenge the train for this title! Being actually on top of one of the highest peaks surrounded my numerous peaks embracing glaciers gave an even more amazing view for low level desert dwellers like ourselves.

Over the next few days I found myself staring at the beautiful scenery just soaking it in. Each day around mid morning colourful para-gliders would gather over the mid level peaks swarming in circles chasing thermals that would carry them higher and further up the surrounding peaks. If they couldn’t find a thermal, a slow but graceful descent into the beautiful valley and over the village of Engelberg could hardly be described as a let down (excuse the pun).

Needless to say by our last day I succumbed and went for my first Para-glider flight (Tandem of course!) When we started our trip with a hot-air balloon over the fairy chimneys in Cappadocia why not finish it off with a Para-glider flight in the Swiss Alps!

]]>https://notaholiday.wordpress.com/2012/08/25/finishing-on-a-high/feed/5peterletchfordEngelburg, Switzerlandhttps://notaholiday.wordpress.com/2012/08/22/engelburg-switzerland/
https://notaholiday.wordpress.com/2012/08/22/engelburg-switzerland/#commentsWed, 22 Aug 2012 03:10:56 +0000http://notaholiday.wordpress.com/?p=922Continue reading →]]>We have had the bestest of times in Engelburg and we thank our friends from Kununurra for recommending it to us. Our friends actually went to school in Engelburg and small world that it is, we met one of their teachers while BBQ’ing our dinner!

Switzerland was for us a time of rest and a time to simply enjoy God’s creation – a time to stop from the rush and to take time to pause from all the thinking we’d been doing – or maybe time to reflect.

We could not have chosen a better place. As you have seen from Peter’s post on the Bernina Express train ride, that we saw some amazing country travelling to Engelburg. The day we arrived though was cloudy and overcast – so much so that you couldn’t see the mountains behind our motel.

Our motel was just lovely – it was like staying in someone’s home – welcoming, personal and cosy! We enjoyed their outdoor area, including their BBQ, for most of the days we were there.

As the kids have already blogged, the first day we headed for the snow. We couldn’t have chosen a better day. It was not freezing and yet the sky was clear – the following days were hazy and even hotter (for Switzerland that is!!)

We had the one day of activity and then a few days of inactivity – though Peter had his own little adventure which I hope he’ll blog about.

On our last night in Switzerland we sat over dinner reflecting on our individual highlights. Even though much of our trip seems surreal we could all list a few highlights from each country.

The hot-air balloon over the fairy chimneys

The catacombs and underground city

Swimming in the Mediterranean Sea

Walking the ruins in Rome

Gondoliers in Venice

The Renaissance Art tour

The list could go on….

As Peter and I went to sleep we feel like we’ve met our expectations or objectives:

It has been a memorable experience we’ve had as a family,

each one of us has been exposed to a wider world, we’ve talked about our place in that world,

we’ve talked lots about the history of the church, and how that has affected society

we’ve talked about the impact of people’s beliefs on culture and how our beliefs need to affect our life and culture

we’ve talked about issues that affect our growing up children like further training and employment, dating and marriage, learning difficulties and relating to one another

I am sure that we will see the impact of our journey together show up in many different ways over the coming months.

As we head home, we are looking forward to the ‘normality’ of life – of cooking, of waking up in the same bed, of seeing our friends and making phone calls to our parents!

]]>https://notaholiday.wordpress.com/2012/08/22/engelburg-switzerland/feed/4belindaletchfordScooters Fun!https://notaholiday.wordpress.com/2012/08/21/scooters-fun/
https://notaholiday.wordpress.com/2012/08/21/scooters-fun/#commentsMon, 20 Aug 2012 16:23:56 +0000http://notaholiday.wordpress.com/?p=909Continue reading →]]>After we had time in the snow we went and had lunch and then had a look at an underground cave made out of ice. After we did everything that we wanted to do, we went back home… but we got off at the hanger before we got to main ground and there we got some scooters that we could ride down the road! It was soooo much fun! The view was so beautiful! I wish we could do it again… but sadly we couldn’t. But it was like riding in England, well that what I thought it looked like.

Here are some photos of the view that we saw.

]]>https://notaholiday.wordpress.com/2012/08/21/scooters-fun/feed/3danielmletchfordAussies in Switzerland in Snowhttps://notaholiday.wordpress.com/2012/08/20/aussies-in-switzerland-in-snow/
https://notaholiday.wordpress.com/2012/08/20/aussies-in-switzerland-in-snow/#commentsMon, 20 Aug 2012 14:56:49 +0000http://notaholiday.wordpress.com/?p=828Continue reading →]]>As a small part in our BIG day on the seventeenth we went out as a family to go tobogganing. Which is (for those who don’t know) sliding down a snowy slope on little plastic bowls or seats. Fun very, it was. Even mum did it at least five times, she was a real trooper and had a great time –her back gave her no troubles so she had a blast with the rest of us. A lot of photos and videos, a lot of crashes and collisions, a lot of calling out “INCOMMMING!” or “LOOK OOUT BELOOW!” and a lot of fun.

The snow was AWESOMENESS. It was the first snow any of us kids had been in and we were ecstatic. We were delighted (and little ditsy) to see mist coming from our mouths this morning. We probably looked like little dinosaurs or penguins exploring the world for the first time. I think we’ve earned the “Completely Tourist” award and are ready to come home.

]]>https://notaholiday.wordpress.com/2012/08/20/aussies-in-switzerland-in-snow/feed/5nomiemOver The Tophttps://notaholiday.wordpress.com/2012/08/20/over-the-top/
https://notaholiday.wordpress.com/2012/08/20/over-the-top/#commentsMon, 20 Aug 2012 12:00:32 +0000http://notaholiday.wordpress.com/?p=869Continue reading →]]>The day started in Lugano. Though the language and the cuisine are still Italian, the clean tidy and orderliness of the streets and buildings suggests that something has changed. The white cross on a red background fluttering from buildings and every boat on the lake below and the Francs in your pocket confirm that you are in a different country, Switzerland.

The panorama of high mountains dropping into a beautiful large lake below only confirms that this is Switzerland (in summer). It is beautiful and as I gazed up on the houses perched on the green mountainsides overlooking the peaceful lake below I could hear my mum say I could live here as that was always her description of a perfect house site, and who wouldn’t.

What brought us to Lugano though was to catch the Bernina Express, which is first a bus (with large viewing windows) trip back into Italy hugging the edges of Lake Lugano and Lake Como an then following the Adda River valley up to a the pretty Italian town of Tirano. The trip along the lakes was a continuation of the same beauty that began in Lugano of mountains dropping into peaceful waters below with clusters of houses and churches nestled along the edges. However the memory that will probably remain with us of this stretch of the trip was the extremely narrow winding streets. So narrow in places that oncoming cars had to back up and pull their mirrors in to allow our bus to progress with only centimetres to spare. I will never get Belinda to travel in Italy by car now!

In Tirano we ordered some pizzas for lunch but had to eat them on the train as we ran out of time. The Panoramic windows extending up and into the roof of the carriage, gives you a fantastic view in that it helps retain perspective and appreciation of the magnitude of the landscape. About two kilometres north of Tirano we passed back into Switzerland and started to climb up a narrow gorge along the Poschiavino River, and from the outset the views just grew more captivating. Early along this section we came to a unique structure called the Brusio Circular Viaduct which has been described as combining both beauty and practicality into one. This sloped viaduct structure with it stone arches describing a 360 degree curve, enables the train to climb quickly in a very short space.

Entering the Brusio Circular Viaduct

From her we continue to a climb up the valley to the town of Poschiavo with its white houses and church towers contrasting with the surrounding green pastures nestled in a beautiful valley. The mountains on either side growing in grandeur as their slopes change from the lush green pastures to the dark green pine forests, to the lighter alpine grasses giving way to the bare rocky peaks.

The village of Poschiavo after a couple of hair pin turns as we climb up into the alps

After Poschiavo we begin to climb in earnest. With the line twisting up hair-pin turns, through several tunnels and over bridges enabling us top hug the side of the mountain, we climb through 1000m (3300 feet) over a distance as the crow flies of only 5km. This translates to 70m being climbed for every 1000m travelled, one of the steepest gradients in the world by a conventional train.

Towards the end of this climb we stopped briefly at the station and restaurant building of Alp Grum, enabling us to take in the awesome view. With the mountains rising to nearly 13000 feet being crowned with snow and the head of the valley with a gleaming glacier. Despite some broken cloud at the crest of the glacier making it difficult to appreciate fully the grandeur of this sight, it was never the less simply awe inspiring for Aussie desert-dwellers like ourselves. As we continued on to the highest point of the Bernina line of Ospizio Bernina Station at 2250m (7381 feet)we passed through real alpine country of short grasses, herbs and rocky outcrops and best of all grazing cattle! Immediately to our left was a small lake of milky water fed by a glacier just a little further up the slope.

Jess and Nomi at Alp Grum and the Palu Glacier behind

This is also a watershed with the waters behind us to the south running into the Adriatic Sea via the Adda and Po Rivers and the waters to our north running into the Black Sea via the Danube River.

The Bernina Express making it way though Alpine landscape just pass Ospizio Bernina the highest point

We now start to descend gradually initially through alpine country with a few Stations which obviously serve as popular ski destination in the winter going by the chairlifts. As we descend further trees start to be incorporated into the landscape and at one point as we crossed a valley with milky water cascading down its bed, we had a grand view of the pine tree lined valley giving way to the Monteratsch and Pers Glaciers and snow capped mountains rising to 4000m(13000feet) forming the distant horizon.

Milky water from Morteratsh Glacier in background

UP to now I was like a little boy let loose in a lolly shop popping around the carriage trying to photograph everything, as every turn provided fresh inspiration. Though the panoramic windows were fantastic for viewing they did give some reflections that frustrate budding photographers. So when I discovered in a small closed off portion of the carriage where we had our bags that I could pull the windows down, I was like a kelpie dog in the back of a ute driving through a mob of sheep, darting from one side to the other, photographing the ever changing view with each turn or exit from a tunnel. I think I have to blame my father for this desire to photograph everything!

As we descended we passed through Samedan which I remember as having the highest airport in Europe at around 5500 feet. From here we passed through a six kilometre tunnel into a new valley where the rivers run into the North Sea via the Rhine River, and we actually crossed the Upper Rhine a little further on.

The journey from here continued to amaze as we continued our descent via same amazing engineering feats. Tunnels that completed full circles into the mountain side enabled us to descend even though we emerged no further along just much lowmer. As we emerged we passed over high viaduct style bridges to the other side of he valley. This was repeated a couple of times down the valley, as well as passing over stone viaduct bridges as high as 300 feet that can only really be appreciated as an onlooker not from the train itself.

Landwasser Viaduct an amazing and elegant construction. They didn’t use scaffolding when it was built in 1902!

However the most striking feature as we continued was the picture perfect landscapes. The white steeples in villages nestled in green valleys. The backdrop of pastures merging into pine forests which peter out into alpine grasses giving way to bare rock speckled with patches of snow contrasting with the vivid blue sky. The postcards are true after all!

Just like the postcards

After settling into our hotel in Chur built in the 1400s, we enjoyed a lovely meal of Ravioli and Gnocchi in an open air restaurant and all agreed that it had been an amazing day of taking in God’s creation and that it would be hard to top.

Or so we thought…………

]]>https://notaholiday.wordpress.com/2012/08/20/over-the-top/feed/2peterletchfordberninaberninaberninaBerninaberninaberninaberninaOne little, two little, three little islands…https://notaholiday.wordpress.com/2012/08/18/one-little-two-little-three-little-islands/
https://notaholiday.wordpress.com/2012/08/18/one-little-two-little-three-little-islands/#commentsSat, 18 Aug 2012 11:03:31 +0000http://notaholiday.wordpress.com/?p=793Continue reading →]]>Yesterday (13th) marked one month since leaving home. We are loving our adventure away but we are also ready to be home with our deaf Dalmatian and normal life (and breakfasts! – oh for a big breakfast, weetbix or smoothie!) Anyway… yesterday morning, we jumped on a boat bus (how cool is Venice!) and joined a larger group to see some of the trademarks of Venice and Italy, by visiting three small islands: Murano, Torcello, and Burano.

Murano is the land of glass. We stopped in a shop and squeezed up on some benches to watch a short glass-making demonstration. It was different to what I expected, but then again, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I’m not sure how they make the glass from sand, but eventually, they get it into dough-like consistency on a stick, heating in the furnace (it reminded me of damper on a stick, for the camp-loving Aussies reading this). The glassmaker took it out every now and then to check on it, and at one point I saw him throwing something on it – I’m guessing some glass or sand shards, to add colour once it hardened. When it was deemed hot enough, the glassmaker moved to a bench and sat down with his tools. It was time to start whipping it into a fish, a vase, or whatever else he wanted to make. While it was still glowing orange from the fire, he used his tools to make the tails of the fish, and pretty quickly you saw the little ends harden into clear glass. He moulded it like a potter moulds clay, and just before finishing, cut the glass in half! When he finished, it was a beautiful glass fish. We spent a bit of time in the gift shop and then headed outside and struck up a conversation with a couple from Katherine of all places! Katherine is one of the closest towns next to ours, although it’s still a six hour’s drive away!

I don’t know much about what the significance of the second island was, except that the Church we saw was one of the oldest in the Venetian area. Unlike the many Churches we’ve seen over the last month in Turkey and Italy, where there were impressive frescoes and paintings and mosaics in gold and vibrant colours, covering the walls and ceilings, this one was very plain and ordinary, with the cement walls and wooden planks covering the inside of the dome. Interestingly however, this one was the most peaceful of any of the Churches we went to, and I remember thinking when I walked in, that this would be the Church I would choose to worship in, over the Hagia Sophia or the Sistine Chapel.

Now for the third island, Burano: the place to find lace. We were herded into a room full of lace creations on display: dresses and shawls, tablecloths, and pictures of people and figures hanging on the wall. Dangling from the ceiling were the traditional (not lace) Venetian masks. Another quick demo and explanation, and then an invitation to go upstairs where there were more items for sale. Up we climbed, admiring all of the many lace amazing ‘pictures’ of Mary or Jesus, of cats, of a gondolier and his gondola, and many other intricate works of art. After some looking around and exploring their beautiful work, Mum and Dad found a gorgeous table runner for the dining room table.

But lace isn’t all Burano is famous for, although I didn’t know it until it came into sight. Burano is the only place that I saw in Venice, where all the houses are still vibrantly coloured with every colour under the sun! There was blue, green, mustard, yellow, purple, red, orange, and pink; we were so excited to see it, because when we arrived in Venice and saw how tired the paint of the houses were, we thought people hadn’t bothered with keeping the colours fresh, and so we wouldn’t see any of the colourful homes. Dad and I, who like to experiment with our cameras, ran off to get deeper into the town to find more photo opportunities. We literally had to run back because we didn’t leave much time for getting back to the bus (boat); we were having too much fun with all that colour!

]]>https://notaholiday.wordpress.com/2012/08/18/one-little-two-little-three-little-islands/feed/5JessFood in Italyhttps://notaholiday.wordpress.com/2012/08/18/food-in-italy/
https://notaholiday.wordpress.com/2012/08/18/food-in-italy/#commentsSat, 18 Aug 2012 08:45:34 +0000http://notaholiday.wordpress.com/?p=802Continue reading →]]>To be honest we were a little disappointed with the food we found in Italy. We found plenty of pizza and pasta – which we expected but a lot of it was fairly ordinary and we suspect made for tourists! We also expected lots of fresh veggies and salad which were very hard to find. In the end we decided that Turkey was the place we experienced, Italy on the other hand we just visited.

But in looking back over our photos we really did have some nice meals along the way.

Unfortunately the one meal we really enjoyed and where the food was a little different we had no cameras with us!! Bad tourists!! For that meal we had ravioli the size of pingpong balls, dressed with a lemony sauce with spinach and peaches – delish! The other dishes were gnocchi and a green pasta with a cheesey sauce. All very nice!

One of the most interesting things I saw in Venice was Saint Mark’s church. It was built not long after Venice was founded in the 700s AD. They expanded it four hundred years later, but it still has the same basically novel design.

Most old Catholic churches in Italy are designed like old pagan Roman temples, because that’s what the Christians of the day were used to. In fact, some churches were old temples converted to the new religion. But Venice, as a centre of international trade, had a lot of contact with the outside world, especially the east. So this church resembled more a Greek Orthodox church like you’d find in Turkey or Egypt than a Catholic building, with it’s several high domes, golden mosaics on the roof and complex altar arrangement. It was the mosaics that most caught my eye.

The mosaics on the roof told the story of the New Testament, from Jesus’ birth to Pentecost. It was normal for churches to tell Bible stories with paintings, glass windows or mosaics because most church-goers in the Middle Ages couldn’t read. So instead, they went to church and saw the Bible stories, similar to a modern graphic novel.

But it wasn’t normal for the emphasis to be so entirely on the entire gospel like this. Most of the Catholic art we’d seen so far had been “Archangel Gabriel and Mary”, “Mary and Baby Jesus”, “Mary with Jesus’s body”, “Judgement Day- Heaven and Hell”, “Jesus Crucified” or various Old Testament stories like David, Moses or Noah. We had never seen a church that set out to just tell you the gospel story, from beginning to end.

And that is important. What we show in our artwork shows what we think is important. Catholic art has a lot more depictions of Mary than Protestant art because she is a far more important to Catholics. Our art shows our heart.

And the gospels lie at the heart of Christianity. Everything before it (Noah, Moses and David) lead up to it. Everything after it (Judgement Day) points back to it. The gospel is central to Christianity. And not just “key parts” of the gospel either- Jesus born, Jesus killed, Jesus resurrected, or all that plus all the bits with Mary in them. The whole gospel is central to the Christian faith.

It’s not enough to explain the gospel as “Jesus came to save us from our sins”. Jesus did not explain his life that way. He walked around Palestine saying “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand”. To know what the Kingdom of God is, to even know it exists, we need the whole gospel story, with the whole Bible story behind it.

The Kingdom of God is a complex thing and I don’t think I can fully do it justice here or even fully understand it myself. But the kingdom of God is where things are done God’s way. It means the forgiveness of sins. It means healing the sick, caring for the poor and broken-hearted, embracing the outcast, being a father to the fatherless and bringing justice and mercy to where there is wrongdoing and legalism. It means bringing light where there is darkness, and salt and truth where there is nothingness. It’s not a place or a political entity like the Jews thought, or an organisation with hierarchies and power-plays like the disciples thought. It is the family of God living as the body of Christ every day, in everything.

What does this look like? How does it work? How can we join it? How can we do it? To answer all these questions, and not just one or two of them, we need the whole Bible, and like St. Mark’s church, highlighting the whole gospel is a good place to start.

]]>https://notaholiday.wordpress.com/2012/08/16/the-whole-gospel/feed/3JoshThe Church of Saint MarkNothing Better Than Messing About In Boatshttps://notaholiday.wordpress.com/2012/08/16/nothing-better-than-messing-about-in-boats/
https://notaholiday.wordpress.com/2012/08/16/nothing-better-than-messing-about-in-boats/#commentsThu, 16 Aug 2012 11:41:59 +0000http://notaholiday.wordpress.com/?p=760Continue reading →]]>Venice is synonymous with canals, gondolas and romantic trips gliding down said canals in said gondolas. So of course, we went for a gondola ride during our only full day in Venice.

Now, as it was a family trip, it wasn’t exactly romantic per se (I suppose I’m not the one to say- ask Mum and Dad). And really, the gondola is basically a famous, over-charged black canoe with a funny Italian with a funny striped shirt standing on the back. But I loved the gondola ride.

To understand why I liked the gondola so much, you have to understand our previous dysfunctional relationship with Venetian transport. Now, except for a small outlying area, in Venice, there are no cars, motorbikes or even pushbikes. You sail or you walk. That’s it. So when we arrived by train into Venice, we took a “water-bus” to our hotel.

The water-bus is not romantic. The water-bus is a big, ugly practical boat with the single objective in life of transporting the most number of tourists over the most amount of water in the least comfortable way possible. The operators shout rough English at you at regular intervals. The seats were basic plastic seats, but not too bad really, if you think of this particular machine as a bus in a bathtub. This particular bathtub bus had a dodgy crankshaft which gave out an almighty death rattle at regular (approximately three second) intervals. Sail along- death rattle. Sail along, death rattle. It sounded like the gears were being ripped apart or bashed along the bottom of the canal in some mechanical imitation of the Inquisition’s torture techniques. Sail along, death rattle. Sail along, death rattle. As I said, getting people from A to B was this machine’s sole objective, in life and in death.

So hopping onto the gondola was a totally different experience. Gondolas have a long, black sleek design, the seats actually had cushions and since it was open-air, you had a beautiful view of Venice floating by.

But the best thing, at least for me, was that it was entirely and completely silent. When I’ve gone canoeing in the past there was always a bit of noise as I lifted the oar out of the water or dipped it back in. But gondola oars don’t work like that. They are more like long wooden fins that the gondolier pushes back and forth in the water, without ever lifting them up. That makes it very, very quiet, except for the incessant cheery chatter between passing gondoliers. There are only three hundred of them in Venice, so I suppose they all get to know each other a bit.

There were no motorised boats roaring around in the canals that we sailed down either, which added to the quiet luxury of it all. Maybe we were in an area reserved for gondolas, but when I think about it, Venetian waterways have far less traffic than most traditional land-bound roads. Maybe the city is not as populous as we imagine, or maybe they do more walking to work.